A Feast for the Senses
by mosylu
Summary: As the wizarding world descends into war, Tonks and Remus discover an unexpected intimacy. This story has five chapters and is NOW COMPLETE!
1. Scent of a Woman

(A/N) This story started out as a sort of writer's exercise--what can I come up with by simply concentrating on one physical sense at a time? Then it sort of . . . evolved. Thanks to Terry Pratchett for the werewolf's nose.

**  


Part One - Scent of a Woman

  
**

He smelled her first.

It was the worst week of the month for Remus Lupin. His skin prickled all over, as if the hair was trying to sprout at top speed. His teeth seemed sharper than usual--he had to concentrate hard on not biting a hole in his cheek. And every sense he could lay claim to was on overdrive, but worst of all was his sense of smell.

Tonight was the full moon, his first at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, and the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix was a haze of smells to him. Besides the usual that anyone could smell--cooking, mold, smog from outside--Remus's nose picked out the particular scents of each person who had walked through the front door in the past few days. They were slightly muted, because almost everyone was either still asleep or out of the house, but Remus had no problem picking them out. Molly Weasley's scent was comfortable and warm, like baking bread, but with the biting green edge of worry. Moody's paranoia hung in the air like a murky black haze, but that was nothing new. Darker now, possibly, than it had been fifteen years before, but still familiar. Sirius's frustration vibrated like a twanged harp string, sharp as spilled acid. That was new.

And the woman smell.

He caught his breath.

He knew this scent of old, heavy and dark and rich with mysteries no man could dream of touching. He'd been nearly seventeen before he realized just what it came from. Even now, understanding that the source was menstrual blood, he thought of it as simply the woman smell.

The iron hand of control he clamped down was as old as his recognition of that scent. His reaction was stronger this time than usual. Perhaps because he hadn't laid a finger, or anything else, on a woman in quite a long time. He drew in his breath through his mouth, letting it out slowly, until his mind had wrestled the reins away from his body. 

He often thought, at times like these, that anyone who thought humanity was above the animals could never have been within ten feet of a woman in all their dried-up lives, because otherwise they would understand just how idiotic that notion was.

The woman was awake--the smell was too fresh for it to be a leftover from the day before, the way the others were. He couldn't quite tell who this was. She must have been out of the house for the past few days. Or the woman smell was covering up her normal scent. 

It strengthened as he padded down the hall to the kitchen, overlaid with the scent of fresh coffee. His blood leapt in his veins, and he wondered if he should turn away and go back upstairs. But he was hungry--for food--and if he didn't deal with it now he'd just have to later. With luck, the woman wouldn't notice anything. He was very good at hiding himself.

Any other time of the month, he would have had to proceed carefully in the greyish dark before dawn, but his wolf eyes were sharper than his human ones. He twitched his shoulders, wishing that it was a week later so his skin felt as if it fit properly again.

As he reached for the kitchen doorknob, a ceramic crash broke the silence, and a soft, "Oh, _bugger"_ reached his newly-sensitive ears. His hand froze.

_Tonks?_

It was Tonks who was the source of the woman smell. 

For a moment, disorientation overtook him as he struggled to reconcile bubbly little Tonks with this ancient woman's scent that was sending his body mad. But why should that be so surprising? She wasn't a child, after all.

Why had he never thought of her as female? As woman?

He took a breath through his mouth and pushed the door open. Tonks blinked up at him. "Morning, Remus," she said. "Just popped in to snitch some coffee after me patrol. I've got to be into work in about half an hour."

He stared down at her. Today, her hair hung to her shoulders in uneven ribbons the approximate color of a radioactive cucumber. She wore a baggy t-shirt with the front witch for the Weird Sisters plastered on, and her jeans had been hacked off three inches below the knee, with ragged strings fluttering clear to her bare ankles. She looked about ten.

He breathed in her smell, which had nothing to do with being ten. 

"Watch the floor there," she said, after a few minutes of silence. "I've broken another mug. No great surprise."

He suddenly realized she was barefoot, in the midst of a lake of ceramic shards. "You should take care yourself," he said. His voice sounded rough, and he cleared his throat. "You don't want to get one in your foot."

She shrugged. "Not as if I'm not used to it." She pulled her wand out of her back pocket and flicked it carelessly. "_Reparo!_" The mug flew together, and she picked it up. "There. Handiest spell I ever learnt, that's for sure."

As she rose from her crouch, she winced slightly. Only very slightly. Only someone with wolf-sharp eyes would have noticed it. Remus said, "Are you feeling . . . quite all right?"

"Who, me? Oh, yeah. Just a little sore, is all. Wanker's protective spells got me last night."

His entire body tensed. "On patrol?"

"What? No. The wizard I was following." She flipped an absent hand. "Auror stuff." She poured herself coffee and opened a cupboard. "You drink coffee, don't--oops!"

His hand flashed out and snatched the mug out of the air an inch above the counter top. "Not today, but thanks." The wolf did not need caffeine. Neither, he thought, did Tonks, but that was her lookout. He set the rescued cup carefully on the counter and looked around for the teakettle.

"Thanks," she said, flushing. "Wish I could do that."

He turned away. He didn't know how much she knew about him, about his . . . condition. "Good reflexes." Wolf reflexes.

"That from the werewolf thing, then?" she asked casually, and took a slurp of coffee.

If he'd still been holding the mug, he would have dropped it. "The what?"

"The werewolf thing," she said. "It's full moon tonight, isn't it?"

He couldn't think of what to say, except, "You know?"

She made a "tuh" sound. "Of course I do. Got a full briefing on the team, didn't I. Just like you." She took another great gulp.

He shifted experimentally toward her. She didn't jolt back or tense up, but only lowered her cup and looked at him. Her eyes were neon green today too. She said, "As long as you're not feeling hungry, I'm not going to run away screaming from the ravenous werewolf."

He said, "Most would." This close to her, the woman smell filled his head and set his blood roaring. He should step back, he knew.

He didn't.

"Yeah, well, I'd probably offer you toast instead. Better for your heart, that." She slapped her rounded hip. "Eating me wouldn't do a thing for your cholesterol."

He thought of a reply for that. If he'd been Sirius, he would have said it, but since he was Remus, he said instead, "I have to say, I never really think of my cholesterol when I have fur and fangs." He looked at her intently. "You've known since you came into the Order."

"Mhm. And to what you're going to say next, yes, I stayed. Not that I had a choice, of course. It's sort of all-or-nothing thing, this." She lowered her mug all the way. "But you think I would have left. Because of you."

He said nothing.

"If Moody or Dung didn't scare me off, why would you?"

"They're not--" He trailed off. He had a lot of words for his wolf mode, but he didn't want to say any of them in front of Tonks, somehow. If she knew what was going on inside him right now . . . 

She snorted into her cup. "Right, because being a perfectly decent man who happens to turn into a wolf every full moon is so much worse than being the lightest-fingered sneak thief this side of the Channel, a paranoid looper who'd break your arm if you tried to shake hands, or worse, a chameleon you can never really trust because you don't know what they're going to look like tomorrow."

"I don't think that's a terribly accurate description," he said quietly.

"What, of Moody? He's a total flipping loony, and Merlin knows we all appreciate it, as it's the reason most of us are still alive. Oh, and speaking of that. Don't use the front door for about--oh, half an hour, say. Just until he gets in from patrol."

"Why not?"

"Unless you fancy being wet through--" She shrugged. "I figure if he's going to be paranoid, I might as well give him a reason for it." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Merlin's wand, is that the _time?"_

He looked too. "I'm afraid so."

"Damn!" Still holding her cup, she spun. "Remus, d'you see a file folder?"

He looked down at the counter, where a coffee-spotted folder rested. "Is this it?"

"Phew. Thanks. The file room are a bunch of tight-arsed bastards if you leave one of those lying around."

The folder said, "Accounting Requisitions, 1978-1979," which didn't look like sensitive information at all. He raised his eyebrows.

She grinned. "Good charm, isn't it? Even if a non-Auror got hold of it, they'd be bored stupid in fifteen seconds." She tucked the folder under her arm, tipped her mug up to catch the dregs, put it half-on and half-off the counter, gave him a quick grin, and Disapparated.

His hand darted out and caught the mug on its way down, but it was total instinct. He stood staring at the spot where she'd Disapparated. Her smell--the woman smell--still hung in the air.

"I thought I knew you," he said to it.

In the next room, Moody--who had refused to Apparate anywhere since he'd been caught in a trap on the arrival end sixteen years before--pushed open the front door. The bucket delicately balanced in thin air dropped. There was a splash and a bloodcurdling scream.

"_Tooooooooooooonks_!"


	2. Sight of the Wolf

**  


Part Two: Sight of the Wolf

  
**

Tonks regretted that she couldn't be on hand for Moody's dousing, but she'd been late to report twice in the past month, and she still had to change her clothes. She Apparated into the middle of her shadowy flat and drew every shade in the place with a few flicks of her wand. Light stabbed in, creating shadows with edges sharp as razors. 

Dashing through shade and sun alike, Tonks hunted up an Anti-Cramp potion and downed it while pawing through her clothes, looking for something clean. She'd been in these clothes all night, and while she didn't have the time to shower, she could at least wear something that didn't knock dragons over at seven paces. Plus, she was reporting to Dawlish this morning, the old stick in the mud, and he preferred wizards to look like wizards. If she walked in with a t-shirt and cutoffs, he'd be seriously annoyed. The robe with green sequins on should only mildly irk him. 

There was a fine line between mildly irked and seriously annoyed. Tonks didn't consider that she walked that line so much as danced a rhumba on it.

She picked up a slightly tatty robe, but she didn't really see it. Instead, she saw Lupin. 

Remus. 

Standing in the kitchen at Number 12, the pearly newborn light striking across his pale eyes, lighting the grey streaks in his dark hair. His neat, strong hands catching the mug she'd dropped. The lines around his eyes deepening slightly, his mouthless version of a smile.

He'd caught her off guard this morning. His eyes, which had always flickered absently past her before, had been intent and searching, as if he were trying to riddle her out. And there had been something, deep in them . . .

She'd never quite been able to believe that there was a wolf inside that gentle, reserved man, until she'd seen that other something in his eyes this morning.

And then every nerve ending in her body had blossomed into life, and she'd dropped mugs and gabbled like an idiot.

She grimaced at the robe she held. _For god's sake, girl, get a grip. You are quite old enough to quit acting like an idiot around a personable man._

She took in a breath through her nose. Of all people, she knew that a person's looks didn't matter. They could be just another form of lie. Take her. A few seconds of concentration, and she could be anybody.

But Remus Lupin . . . 

His looks were honest.

He didn't bother dying away the grey, or charming away the lines. He was always himself, and she . . . she never was.

In general, Tonks was pretty comfortable with herself, but when he was around, she felt like a silly child. He radiated quiet calm that made her feel like a ping-pong ball in comparison. A young ping-pong ball.

Her brain finally understood what her eye had been seeing for the past few minutes--the clock on the wall said quarter-to. And she had to be in Dawlish's office on the hour. 

"Sod it all," she muttered, giving up on the green sequins and trading her Muggle clothing for the robe she held in her hand. The purple glitter around the hems might be shedding, but it was at least stink-free. She dashed into the living room, leaving a trail of glitter floating slowly to the ground behind her like a comet's tail. Almost straight away, she stubbed her toe on the base of the sofa.

"Gyaaaaaaaaah--!" But that reminded her. Shoes. Shoes. Where the flaming hell were her shoes? She'd worn them last night, hadn't she? She hated shoes. She chose them mainly by how easy they were to kick off.

A picture leapt to her mind. The floor at Number Twelve, the polished oak floor boards dark in the morning shadows. Her trainers, laces trailing, backs crushed, and tongues flopping like a parched dog's, kicked into a corner. 

Then Remus and that look in his eyes had walked in, and of course that had shot her brains straight to hell.

"Eyagh!"

A blotch of color on the floor caught her eye, and she used her foot to flip the sandal over before stepping into it. Now for its mate. She ran unevenly into her bedroom and found one that would pass if nobody looked too hard. She hesitated, then looked at the clock again. "Bugger. Bugger. Buggerbuggersodit_all!_" She worked with a bunch of wizards, and the few witches in the office had other things to worry about than her shoes. She shoved her foot in and dashed out again.

She skidded to a halt in her living room, looking wildly around for the file folder. She was going to chain the damned thing to her skeletal system. Ha! There. No time to make herself lunch. She'd have to make do with the horrifying fare at work.

With another flick of her wand, she drew the shades again. The shadows had barely taken over before she Disapparated.

She arrived in the ugly front hallway of Auror headquarters, all greying plaster and interesting cracks that looked like things if you squinted right. Literally hundreds of protective spells prickled over her skin, verifying her identity, as she darted through the halls. Moody had been at this place again. Loony, she thought, but with affection. He'd trained her, and trained her well. She'd missed him during his year at Hogwarts--which hadn't been too much fun for him, either, she reminded herself.

She paused in front of Dawlish's door, panting. She still had about a minute to spare, and she used it to regulate her breathing so it would look like she'd actually been on time for once.

Step-clonk. Step-clonk. "Hmph."

She jolted and spun to stare into a face that regularly scared small children. "Hallo, Moody," she said, giving him her sweetest smile. He wasn't supposed to be here at all, being retired, but who was going to tell that face it had to leave? "You look a touch damp. Get caught in a shower on your way to work?"

Gargoyles could have learned from his glare. He didn't look in the least bit damp, of course. But she could never resist

"Do you ever listen to what's going on, girl?" he demanded. "I walked right up behind you! Could've killed you before you could blink!"

"Constant vigilance," she said along with him. "I know." She didn't mention that she'd recognized his tread. She didn't want to spoil his fun.

He eyed her purple glitter. "Sometimes I don't know why we let you work for us."

She smirked and transformed herself into Dawlish. "Because I have skills."

"Hrmph." He stomp-clonked past her and down the hall.

Tonks reverted to her former appearance, paused, and pulled a strand of hair over her shoulder. Green and purple. Definitely not. She changed her hair to match her robes, shortened it because she was tired of pushing it out of her eyes, and went into Dawlish's office.

"Nice of you to join me this morning," Dawlish said coolly. His eyes flicked over her purple glitter and violet spikes, and he frowned.

"Thanks for the invitation," she returned, and dropped the Natchez file on his desk. "This one has automatic protection spells around his shop and his home." Her side twinged, too high up for cramps. She added, "Nasty ones. Sir, I'd like permission to have a look at his Gringott's records." She could have done it herself, but occasionally it was politic to go through channels.

"Denied." He pushed the folder away with one blunt-tipped finger, and it slid along the scarred, pitted surface of his desk into a patch of sunlight.

Her jaw dropped. "What? But he's living too high on the hog for a shop owner--it's all in there, in my notes--"

Dawlish's eyes were flat and cool. "He came into some family gold recently."

"Family gold or not, there's something off about him. I--"

"Natchez isn't under suspicion anymore."

With an effort, she closed her mouth. "Can I ask why?"

"He's been vouched for."

"By?"

Her boss frowned at her. "An impeccable source."

She gritted her teeth. Fudge. Or one of Fudge's cronies. Like Lucius Malfoy. "Right. Is that it?"

"That'll be all," her boss said briskly. With a flick of his wand, he sent the Natchez case to the file room and, sliding gold-rimmed spectacles on, he started reading some other Auror's report.

She stared at her boss a moment. He might be the top Auror in the business, but he was as blind as a bat. _There are things you don't know, can you possibly conceive of that? Things you don't want to see. And if you'd just take the damned blinders off, you idiot--_ "Right," she said, and left.

Outside, she leaned against the wall and struggled to control her breathing. She couldn't let anyone see her like this, because they might wonder why she was so furious. As one of the most junior Aurors in the office, she had to be careful. This double-life business was no joke.

Somehow, she thought carefully, it would have been easier if he were smug about it. But Dawlish really was doing his job, the best way he understood. That was what made it hard. He truly believed in the self-deceiving pap that Fudge put out. For that matter, so did Fudge. So did ninety percent of the people in the Ministry and on the street.

Thank God and the little baby Jesus for the other ten.

And thank God, thank _God_, it had been Moody that trained her.

Maybe he'd drilled her endlessly on self-defense and protective spells that others might have said were overkill, but his peculiar paranoia had also trained her to look beyond the surface of even those things she was supposed to take for granted. If he hadn't been her teacher, she might have gone through the past month with the same blinders as Dawlish.

Gritting her teeth, she stared fixedly at the window opposite, concentrating all her attention on the peeling paint of the frame that exposed the greying wood beneath, so her frustrated anger would have a chance to subside. A bit of sun speared in through a crack in the glass, bursting out again in a little nova. From her angle, it looked a bit like a star had landed on the windowsill. As her fury ebbed, she let herself sink into that burst of light.

And in the light, she saw a wolf.

It was an old wolf, old and scarred, with weird pale eyes. It padded into her line of vision, then paused and lay down, carefully, as if movement hurt it. Its tail swished back and forth across the ground, very slowly. It didn't lay its head upon its paws, but kept it uplifted, watching. Waiting.

It looked very, very alone.

She thought, _You're waiting for your mate._

_Who is your mate, old wolf?_

Someone's hand landed on her shoulder. In the pause between heartbeats, she slammed her elbow back into his stomach, pivoted neatly, and followed through with a hard punch to the chin that snapped his head back. Her attacker dropped like a stone.

A glass eye rolled across the floor.

"Oops."

She bent down to help Moody up. "Sorry," she said. "Startled me."

"Good--reflexes," he wheezed. "Good, girl, good."

"I've been practicing."

He looked around. "Get my eye, would you?"

She made a face. "Are you mental? I'm not touching that."

He picked it up himself, grumbling. "Where were you, anyway?" he asked, rubbing it on his sleeve.

"Thinking," she said. "About things." The fury had seeped away, to be replaced by the faintly disgusted resignation that accompanied her at work the past month. She also felt a little silly for nearly killing him. If she'd been paying attention to her surroundings, she wouldn't have been surprised. "Where're you going?"

"Around." He popped the eye back in with a slight squelching sound. She made a disgusted noise. He ignored it. "How'd the report go?"

She met his eye. "Natchez," she said, "has been vouched for."

"Hunh." They set off down the hall in tandem.

"Mhm. I'm for the file room, to get another case."

His eye swiveled toward her, squeaking slightly in its socket. "Nothing you can do about it, girl," he said. "On to the next job, is it?"

"Right. Nothing I can do about it. Just like you taught me." Her copy of the file was hidden up under her wardrobe in her flat. Just like he'd taught her.

She decided to run into Bill Weasley at lunch.

Moody said, "You'd best stop staring at nothing in the middle of the halls, girl. Very suspicious."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "If you met a baby birdie chirping in its nest, Mad-Eye, you'd be suspicious."

"Too right," he said forcefully. "It could be a harpy in disguise. And about that little trick this morning--"

"Thought you'd like it," she grinned, settling into the comfortable rhythm of bickering with Moody. It lasted until he left her at the file room. She made sure of it.

By that time, she'd slipped easily into her accustomed mask. Her fellow Aurors, seeing her brilliant hair and shedding glitter, shook their heads. Nice girl, really, but she had a lot to learn. Keep her on the simple cases for a bit. Good job crazy old Moody hadn't completely ruined her.

Under the mask, Tonks kept returning to the vision.

To the wolf.

A first-year Divination student could have taken a look at her vision and understood it. Staring blindly at the new file folder on her tornado-aftermath desk, Tonks wondered about Remus Lupin and the mate he was waiting for.

****


	3. Sound of Silence

**  


Part Three: Sound of Silence

  
**

(A/N) Britishism: Zimmer frame = walker

_Crash!_

Remus jerked his head round in the direction of the catastrophe. At the other end of the St. Mungo's waiting room, a woman stood over a mess of shards, flowers, and water. She was a slight woman, with dull skin, unremarkable features, and dishwater-blond hair. She was the sort of woman whose name nobody could ever remember, five seconds after they'd met. It took a couple of glances to make sure she was even there. Remus supposed she was . . . His attention slid away before he could even finish the thought, and he got up to help them clear the mess away.

"Sorry!" the woman cried. "Sorry! Sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going, and--"

Something about that voice . . . no, not the voice. The words. 

"Tonks?" he said in disbelief, and the dull woman turned.

"Wotcher, Remus."

He stared. He wanted to say, _Is that you?_ but that would be daft. Had the moon not been nearly new, he would have known the instant she walked into the room. Even now, with his sense of smell nearly as dull as any other man's, he knew her scent, and his body reacted enthusiastically.

Merlin's wand. That plain woman--that woman who took unremarkability to new lows--that woman who very nearly blended into the wallpaper--that was _Tonks._

Anxiety surfaced in her muddy eyes as they crouched together to clear up the mess. "Arthur?"

He had to shake his head. "Nothing yet."

"Who else is here?"

"Just Molly. She's in with Arthur and the healers. She's part of the life-support spells, apparently. An anchor."

"Oh my god," she breathed. "That bad?"

He let his silence answer that. "There's just us to sit and wait here, I'm afraid. Everyone else is--busy." With a quick flick of his wand, he repaired the vase and handed it to the nurse, who cradled it like an infant and gave Tonks a dirty look before sweeping away.

Tonks made a face after her, then jittered in place. Remus shifted in front of a vulnerable lamp. "I wish I were busy," she said fretfully. "I've just come from Dumbledore. My job tonight's done."

He recalled what she'd been sent to do. "What happened at the Ministry?" he asked in a low voice, leading her to the quiet corner he'd claimed, which was breakables-free.

She told him in the same low voice. It was almost as dissatisfying as his own news. The snake had disappeared and nobody seemed to know anything. "I imagine Kingsley will tell us a bit more tomorrow. I just sort of hung about and listened. Didn't ask anybody anything too weird. Didn't want to draw too much attention to meself."

"Is that why--" he gestured at her overall forgettability.

She looked down at herself. "Well--yeah." She gave him a crooked grin, and it brought her face momentarily to life. "How d'you like the real me?"

"This is your--umm--natural state?" It seemed like the biggest oxymoron in nature--a forgettable Tonks.

"Mhm."

"It's--a shock," he said honestly. Now that he put his mind to it, he remembered that Metamorphmagi were usually unremarkable in their natural state. The book, he felt, had not done enough to stress just how unremarkable.

She concentrated, and her hair shortened to spikes and turned its accustomed bubble-gum pink. "Better?"

"A bit." Unbelievably, even under the brightened hair, her face seemed to fade into nothingness. She grinned at him again, and the face he was used to took shape around the grin, as if she were a crazy sort of Cheshire cat. He relaxed. 

Wearing that face and hair, she made even her bland grey jumper and dull brown trousers look colorful and cheery. "What's the time?" she asked.

Remus checked the clock. "It's gone two."

"And it was, what, midnight when--it happened?"

"Yes."

"Only two hours." She rubbed her arms, her palms shushing against the wool. "It doesn't seem like only two hours."

They waited.

__

Tap.

Tapita-tap.

Squeak.

Rustle.

"Tonks," he said.

"Sorry," she mumbled, and sat still. For a minute. Then--

__

Tapita-tapita-tap.

He looked at her.

"I'd be fine," she burst out, "if it weren't so bloomin' _quiet._"

In fact, it wasn't the least bit quiet. Besides Tonks's restless noises, there were footsteps, the rise and fall of voices, the zip-sizzle of spells, and a hundred other little noises. St. Mungo's was alive with sound, even at this hour of the night. But Remus knew what she meant. Without any information about their friend, the place was simply too silent.

After what felt like three or four eons, but was probably more like ten minutes, Tonks leapt up. "I'm going to ask for news." Her voice was too quick, the words jumbling together, and she dashed off before finishing the sentence.

"They won't know at the front desk," Remus called out, following. His legs were longer, but he still didn't catch her up until she had stopped in front of the reception desk. In spite of the time, there were a few people in front of her. "Wait--they won't know here."

Tonks bounced up and down on her toes as if she had springs in her shoes, trying to see over the shoulder of the man in front of her, who was scowling and holding his arm as it oozed something purple. "They'll know who to ask--" She started to dart around the grouchy man, and Remus caught the back of her jumper.

"Just wait," he said.

Some smell, something that wasn't disinfectant or blood or Tonks, tickled his nose. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, like a dog's hackles, and bit down hard on his cheek. What was it?

To distract himself, he focused his thoughts on Arthur. There was probably no news to be had. Someone would have come to get them if--

If something had happened.

Tonks stayed in line, but she practically vibrated in place. It surprised him that her outline didn't blur. He thought of touching her--arm, shoulder, back--to calm her down, but he had the feeling that if he did that, she might just go off like a Dr. Filibuster's. 

Or he might.

He hadn't seen much of her since that day in July, in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, but he thought of her. A lot. Every time she wasn't around, he told himself that the tingle in his blood and the fizz just under his skin were imaginary. That he really wasn't as attracted to her as he thought he was. That she was a friend and co-worker, and nothing more.

And every time she turned up, hair a brand new shade of impossible, eyes sparkling with her lifelong joke, he knew he was lying to himself.

It had all been so easy on him when he'd still thought of her with friendly affection and rather amused tolerance. But that morning had changed everything. Her cycle didn't coincide with the moon's, so he'd never since gotten as strong a dose of the woman smell as he had in that sunny kitchen. 

But the damage was already done. After she'd become a woman to his senses, it had all been downhill from there. Little by little, Nymphadora Tonks had invaded his thoughts and dreams until he felt as if he were drowning in the wanting of her.

He truly doubted she felt the same way about him.

_She probably thinks you're an antique. A dinosaur. On the waiting list for a Zimmer frame and a nice bowl of gruel before your nine o'clock bed-time._

He grimaced. He hated gruel.

The smell--not Tonks, the other--hit him again. He clenched his fists until his short nails bit into his palms, fighting to distract himself from the growl that clawed at the back of his throat. _Why_ now? He was human right now, mostly, with the moon a thin, waning fingernail in the sky. Why was the wolf snapping and snarling within him?

Tonks said, "What?" and he jumped.

"Nothing."

She studied him, her brows drawn together. "D'you want to sit down? You look tired."

He sighed. "No, I'm fine."

In front of them, the nurse on duty was arguing with the grouchy man, their words jumbling together as he interrupted her and she interrupted him back. "Sir," she tried. "Sir. Sir. Sir. We can't--sir, please, just listen. We can't treat you properly unless we know what it was that bit you."

"It doesn't matter," he said impatiently. "Wild dog. Look, it's infected, that's the point, and I need you to do something about it."

Remus's eyes dropped to the purple ooze on the man's arm. He could practically feel his teeth grow, even as his heart filled with compassion. Ah, god.

"Was there venom?" the nurse wanted to know.

"I don't know, it was a dog!"

"Are you sure?"

"It was a dog, why do I have to keep telling you that?"

"What did it look like?"

"A dog! Fur, paws, teeth, I noticed the teeth straight off, seeing as how they were lodged in my _arm_--"

"This happened when?"

"About two weeks ago--damned dog came out of nowhere--I thought it was nothing but--"

"The full moon was two weeks ago, wasn't it?"

Remus barely stopped himself from saying "thirteen days."

The nurse dropped her voice. "Sir, could it have been a werewolf?"

The man choked.

Tonks shot Remus a quick, worried glance.

"No!" the man shouted, half a second too late.

"Sir," the nurse said quietly. "You'd better come with me."

"It was just a dog! Common variety--pit bull, that's what it was, a pit bull. Or-or maybe a terrier! Not a werewolf, I'd know a werewolf if I saw one--"

"Sir, we're going to the fourth floor, all right?" She took him away, as he continued swearing that it hadn't been anything like a werewolf, no indeed, perhaps it had been a Chihuahua, those were evil little buggers all right--

They had to wait at the desk for a few minutes before the nurse returned, and then a few minutes more for her to obtain the information that there wasn't any--information, that was. Arthur was still being worked on. Remus hadn't expected anything else. They returned to their seats.

The silence had become a sucking tar pit, threatening to drag him under. Remus tried to catch his breath and couldn't. On the wall, a clock ticked like a giant's footfalls. There was a faint roaring in his ears, like a waterfall a long way off.

"It wasn't me." The words leapt out on their own, falling into the silence like stones into a pond.

"I know," she said straight away.

"It wasn't," he said. "I took the potion. I always take the potion." Since his slip a year and a half before, the night Peter had escaped, he'd been twice as careful about the Wolfsbane potion.

"I know," she said again.

"Oh." He let out his breath, slowly, but the tension didn't slip out with it.

The clock ticked on. Damned thing was really awfully loud.

"Did you--know? When you saw him, I mean."

He swallowed, and something in his ears clicked. "No. Not precisely."

She didn't say anything, and the silence was a question.

"I smelled it. Him. I reacted, but I didn't understand why." 

"You tensed up all of a sudden."

"Yes."

"But you didn't know why?"

"No. It was automatic. Instinctive. Like a--" _wolf._ "An animal. I don't run into a lot of--others. And he was . . . new. Didn't smell quite--like one or the other."

"His body's still changing."

"Yes."

She fell silent then, and he listened to her. The hush-hush of cloth against cloth as she shifted, the soft in-out rush of her breathing--was it a bit fast?

He almost fancied he heard the beat of her heart.

"What was it like for you?"

Caught by surprise, he didn't answer straight away, and she jumped in. "Never mind. Ignore me. Stupid question. Really brainless. I shouldn't--"

"I didn't understand," he said.

"Me? You didn't understand me? That's all right, never mind--"

"I didn't understand what was happening." He looked at her. "I was--four. Perhaps three." Half to himself: "Surprised I remember it at all."

"You don't need to--"

"My father. I remember my father shouting. My mother crying. All I knew was that a big dog had bitten me, and that it was the worst possible thing that could have happened. But I didn't understand." He took an unsteady breath. "And nobody would tell me why."

She said nothing. He looked at her. She was staring at her hands.

"Sorry. That's probably not what you wanted to hear about."

She looked up quickly. "No. No, it was. Really."

When Sirius, James, and Peter had asked, Remus had told them what happened. He'd been bitten while on a walk with his parents. They'd known it was a werewolf from the first. Twenty-eight days later, he'd changed form for the first time. All very matter-of-fact.

At that time, he'd been a twelve-year old boy, talking to other twelve-year-old boys whom he desperately wanted to remain friends with. He hadn't told them how terrified and confused he'd been. He'd never told anyone that. Except, now, Tonks.

"Did it hurt? Not the bite," she added. "The--change."

He considered that. "No," he said. "Things about me changed, but--it didn't hurt. Not until my first transformation."

"I've heard about that," she said quietly. "Is it really that bad?"

"Human skin's not meant to warp like that. Organs aren't supposed to shift around the way they do. Bones weren't made to change shape. It hurts."

"Every time?"

"Every time without the potion. Half of that is really just a painkiller that works on our bodies. We're not really--one thing or the other, so it's difficult." He smiled and felt the muscles of his face creak. "The other half's a sleeping draught."

She said nothing, and he looked away. Across the room, an arrangement of dried flowers sat in a vase. He concentrated on that, tracing the brittle lines of stem and petals. One of the stems had broken, and the heavy head drooped down almost to the table.

She shifted, her trousers rustling against the material of the chair, and took in a breath. "Remus?"

He looked back at her, wondering what she would say.

She smiled, but it was an effortful smile, like his own. Her words came out haltingly, as if she wasn't sure of them. "I'm glad you have the potion. I don't like to think of you hurting."

"Thank you," he said, and felt foolish. _Thank you?_ But what else was there to say to that?

He looked back at the dried flowers.

Why had he told her?

Because she'd asked, he thought. Because _she_ had asked, Nymphadora Tonks who hated her first name and turned her hair colors that would glow in the dark and laughed in a way that made his fingers itch to touch her and his mouth yearn to taste her. Because she'd wanted to know.

The clock had ticked away ten more minutes before he felt he could look back at her. When he did, he found her slumped in her chair, her cheek propped on her hand, and her eyelids drooping.

Relief washed over him. He'd half-convinced himself he would see her huddled in the corner farthest from him, staring as if he were a mortal danger to himself and others. Which of course he was, but not right this minute. "Boring you to sleep, am I?" he asked.

Her head jerked up, and she blinked furiously. "No! No."

He felt the tug at the corners of his mouth. "There's no shame in it. It's been a long night."

"I don't really need much sleep. A few hours."

"And when was the last time you got that much?"

She thought. "Tuesday?"

A laugh escaped before he could smother it. "Get some rest. It'll make the hours go faster."

She frowned at him for the laugh. "But one of us should be awake."

"It'll be me in any case."

"How do you know?" she challenged.

"I get insomnia." Usually around the full moon, but she wasn't to know that.

Her frown changed to one of concern. "Does nothing work? You should sleep."

"This from you," he mocked gently.

"But--"

"Sweetheart, I'm not ready for the quiet of the grave just yet." He pulled his cloak off the chair next to him, rolled it into a ball, and handed it to her. She looked at the makeshift pillow as if it were the biggest hunk of chocolate in the world.

"I'll just close my eyes a moment. If you're sure--"

"I'll wake you if anything happens."

"Or if you get sleepy," she said firmly. "Promise."

"Of course," he said, so she would go to sleep.

She put the cloak against his arm and curled up, smaller than he would have thought possible. After some wiggling around to settle herself, she went still. Just as he thought she was asleep, she lifted her head. "Of course you're not ready for the quiet of the grave. You're much too young to die." She put her head back down. In the pause between one breath and the next, she fell asleep.

Through the dregs of the night, he sat in the waiting room, listening to her sleep. And when his eyelids got so heavy he couldn't keep them open, he surprised himself by waking her, as he'd promised, and letting her watch over his slumber as he'd done for her.


	4. Taste of Grief

**  


Part Four: Taste of Grief

  
**

Although it had been sunny when the train had come in, clouds moved in and it started to rain on the way back from King's Cross, the sneaky icy sort that slid down collars no matter how high they were tugged up. Tonks conjured an umbrella for herself, and Mad-Eye made an exasperated sound.

"Yellow ducks, girl?"

She beamed at him. "Cute, aren't they?"

He muttered something about her abysmal Stealth scores and stumped off down an alleyway, leaving her alone with Remus.

She said, "Umbrella?" seeing that he was still walking along in the rain.

"Is it big enough?"

"Mhm." She handed it to him so it wouldn't poke him in the eye, with her holding it.

They plodded along for awhile. Normally, in such miserable weather, Tonks would have Apparated straight home as soon as she could, but not tonight. She didn't want to leave Remus behind. She wanted to be near him right now, while she had a good excuse.

Merlin knew, she'd used enough flimsy ones in the past six months. She wondered if he'd ever noticed, and what he thought of it. He wasn't stupid, after all. Maybe he was pretending not to notice, so he wouldn't hurt her feelings.

__

Oh, please, not that!

His sleeve brushed hers, and her heart jumped. _Stupid_, she thought. _As bad as still mooning over him calling you sweetheart at St. Mungo's._

He'd never said it again. Not once in six long months. Neither had he ever opened up as far as he had in that quiet waiting room. It had been a busy and trying six months, to be sure, but she'd hoped for a few moments, at least. One or two . . . here and there . . . was that too much to ask? But Remus had pulled his accustomed reserve around him like a thick cloak, and left her frustrated on the outside.

And now that Sirius was dead . . . .

Tonks took an unsteady breath, inching herself backward from that particular abyss. She just wanted, she thought carefully, to be near Remus right now, as close as he would let her. She wanted to bask in that warm-bath calm and let it quiet everything inside her that wanted to scream and beat on the walls.

And she didn't want to leave him alone, Remus who had just two weeks ago lost the dearest friend still left to him. If he was hurting, she didn't want him to hurt alone. If she had to rip off that cloak of reserve with her bare hands, she'd do it.

"Listen," she said. "You eaten?"

He thought. "No."

"I'm starved, and I'm not too keen on eating alone tonight. If that's all right," she added tentatively.

"It's all right."

She nodded, trying to conceal her relief. "Hot food's called for, I think," she said. "Takeaway?"

He shrugged.

"D'you fancy Chinese?"

"Anything you like," he said politely.

She saw her favorite takeaway Chinese place down the street and dug in her pocket. "I'll get you orange chicken," she said, bringing out the Muggle money she always kept in a pocket for impulse takeaway. "I'm having sweet and sour. We can share."

Ten minutes later, he took the two bags she handed him, and looked sideways at her two. "Have you an army in your flat that needs feeding?"

She looked down, and laughed, more in surprise than amusement. She always ate too much when she was unhappy, and the last week or so she'd been eating like a sumo wrestler in danger of losing weight. "None but me. And you. It should keep. I just re-charmed my icebox." She paused in front of another lighted door. "Coo. Samosas."

"What?"

"You like samosas?"

"What are they?"

"I'll get two."

She handed him her bags and ducked into the light for a moment, returning with a fragrant takeaway bag. "You'll like these," she promised, holding the paper bag up to him so he could smell.

He looked doubtful.

Her flat was on the second story, her door accessible only by a set of wobbling iron stairs that were presently slick with rain. Biting her lip, Tonks stepped as carefully as possible. These stairs had gotten her this morning--she'd had to disguise the bruise along one cheekbone, and it still ached a bit.

They had to pause on the landing while she let him through all the protective spells Moody had set up. After a couple of quick Drying Charms, they set all the food on the table. "Chopsticks?" she asked, extricating two sets from the bags.

"No, thank you." He smiled fractionally. "I can never quite get the hang of them."

"Me neither." She dropped them in a drawer, where they clacked against several other, older sets.

They spoke very little as they ate. Tonks concentrated on her food--bland steamed rice, sharp-sweet sauce, chicken. Soft egg-drop soup, the bits of white sliding around her mouth. Crab puff, the outside going _crunch_ between her teeth, and the delicate crab/cheese filling a counterpoint.

Gradually, she became aware that Remus had stopped eating. "Don't you like it?" she asked.

"It's very good," he said. "I'm just--not hungry."

"That's all right." She glanced around the table and saw the bag with the samosas. She picked it up. "But try one of these, at least."

He looked at it a moment.

"They are really good," she said. "One bite?"

"Perhaps a bite," he said.

She unwrapped the two fat, triangular pastries from their oily bag and gave him one. He took an experimental taste.

"Good?" she asked.

"Bit like a Cornish pasty, isn't it?"

She smiled. "This time bite into the _filling_, Remus."

He obeyed, and she followed suit, to taste what he did. Savory potato, a pea, and--

Abruptly he started coughing.

"Ah, the spices have kicked in." She savored the fire in her mouth, the prick-prick-prick of Indian spice all over her tongue.

"You might have warned me," he choked.

"I never could have explained it." She gave him a quick, concerned look. "Not too much, is it?"

He shook his head and took a gulp of water. "Just unexpected."

She laughed. "I bring these to Sirius. He loves them, except he picks the peas out and flicks them at me--" She broke off. "Loved. He loved them."

Silence descended. She'd actually forgotten, for a moment, that Sirius was dead. It felt like a betrayal.

Remus said, "He never did like peas. He'd bounce them off the back of Snape's head in the Great Hall."

His voice sounded like she felt--as raw as if every layer of protection had been stripped away. It was the first she'd ever heard him sound like this since Sirius's death.

"Remus," she said in a quavering voice, and he looked up.

His eyes decided it.

Her voice settled, firm and clear. She wasn't going to like what was coming, but it had to be done. "Tell me how it happened."

Her Aunt Bella had knocked her unconscious, and Tonks had woken to the news that Harry was safe, Fudge had done a one-eighty, and Sirius was dead. For a few moments, in the sunny ward at St. Mungo's, the first two had meant nothing. Then they'd crept in around the edges of the black horror and lightened it a little--but only a very little. Things had been too confused and hectic after that to get any details, and she wasn't sure she wanted them. But now she did.

And Remus . . . 

Remus had to tell her.

He sat looking at his samosa as if memorizing the exact pattern his teeth had left in the pastry. For a moment, she thought she'd pushed too hard. Then--

"He--was fighting--Bellatrix Lestrange."

The words came in jerks, as if they were being forced past something in his chest. Tonks waited, her stomach heavy and her breath blocked up in her lungs.

"He ducked--one of her spells. Said, 'Come on, you can do better than that!' Yelled it--so we could all hear."

"Sounds like him," she managed.

"Yes." Something that might have been a smile, but for the look in his eyes, flickered across his face and was gone. "It echoed. He was laughing. I remember that too. Laughing--dancing--as if it were a party instead of a duel." 

"Then?"

"Then," he said. "Then." He looked at his food as if he could not bear the thought of it anymore. "Then Bella hit him again."

For several moments, there was no sound but the thrum of the rain on the roof. Tonks' hand clenched, and her fork shifted with the movement, scraping against her plate.

"I'd turned when he yelled. His words were still echoing. I saw it, and I knew. Just the way his eyes widened--I knew. He fell through the arch--you know the arch."

"Yes." They both did. 

"And I thought--" He broke off, rubbing his hand over his face. "No."

"What?"

"It's nothing."

"It's something." 

"I thought, _My God, now I really am the only one left._ Awful."

"No. Understandable."

He looked at her a moment, then away.

"What next?" she asked.

"Then Harry--I saw Harry. He didn't understand. He didn't know about the arch, or what someone looks like when they die. I wish he still didn't." Remus closed his eyes. His throat worked convulsively. "I had to hold him back, or he would have gone charging after Sirius. I had to tell him--he was struggling--and he screamed at me that Sirius wasn't--" He stopped, opened his eyes, and looked straight at her. "I've done a lot of hard things," he said quietly. "But the worst was having to say to that boy, 'He can't come back. He can't come back because he's dead.'"

For several moments, they sat. Tonks stared at her food. A tear slid off her chin and dropped into a puddle of sweet-and-sour sauce, making a tiny clear dent in the reddish-orange liquid.

She'd really gotten far too much food.

She thought, _Sirius would have helped me eat it._

Another tear landed in the sauce.

She lifted her head, and Remus turned his away. In the instant before he did, she saw the tears shining in his eyes. "No," she said. _"No_. Don't stop yourself."

He shook his head, but it was the motion of a man who didn't know what else to do.

She wanted to crawl over the table, across all the food, and wrap her arms around him, but she couldn't seem to move. "Remus," she implored. "Please don't." Her voice cracked. "I couldn't bear it if you did. For once, please, _please,_ don't be strong."

She reached across the table then. His hands lay on either side of his half-empty plate, the fingers curled slightly under. She slipped her fingers into the curl, needing the contact. For a moment, his fingers were cold and limp over hers, then they closed.

"I don't know how _not_ to be," he said, so low she could hardly hear him.

She tightened her grasp, just fractionally, trying to communicate in that gesture what she couldn't find the words for.

He closed his eyes, and for a moment, she thought he would pull away. Then she saw the tears. They slid silently from his lashes down over the bump of his cheekbones, down the hollows, into the lines of sorrow around his mouth, down to his chin to drop onto the shabby jumper and disappear. 

Her grief rose up then, like a black tsunami, and swamped her. It was almost a relief though, to give in. She hadn't been able to before. She'd been afraid she'd never find her way back.

But here and now, Remus's hands remained in hers like an anchor. As long as she was with him, neither of them would get so lost that they wouldn't be able to come home again.

When the storm receded, it seemed as if it took everything else with it. She felt hollowed out inside, as if someone had scooped out her insides with a melon baller.

But she didn't feel quite so raw. The ache of grief was still there, but it had lost its bite. Sirius was still dead; nothing had changed. But she felt as if her world could maybe continue now.

She lifted her head and met Remus's reddened eyes, and she saw him realize, just as she did, that they still held each others' hands.

They both pulled away. 

Tonks put her suddenly cold hands in her lap and concentrated on breathing. Her lips, when she licked them, tasted sharply of salt. The inside of her mouth felt gummy and dry. Her cheeks and neck were damp from tears, and cold with it.

Remus said, "I'd better get back."

She said, "Yes."

In silence, they packed the food back into takeaway boxes and stored them in her icebox. When he turned away to pick his coat off the back of the sofa, she took a moment at the sink to wash her face. 

When he'd put his coat on, she picked up the umbrella. "Will you need this? Or are you Disapparating back?"

"If you wouldn't mind?"

"No." She even erased the yellow ducks before she handed it to him.

"Thank you."

Their voices were stilted and formal, like the morning after a drunken tryst. _Worse,_ Tonks thought. They'd shared something that far outstripped stupid sex for intimacy, and neither of them had been quite ready for it.

He looked down at the umbrella, rubbing his thumb over the handle. For a moment, she thought he might say something, but he didn't. 

So she did. "Remus."

He looked up.

She inched closer. She wanted to touch him, her fingers almost itching with the need, but she kept her hands at her sides. "Thank you."

"Tonks, I--" He stopped, closed his eyes a moment, and swallowed, and didn't say anything more.

She undid the protection spells and went outside with him. It was still raining, but lighter than before. Softer. She went down first, stepping carefully and holding onto the railing as the stairs shivered under her. 

The cement at the bottom was colored reddish orange from rust. They stood on it under the umbrella, water soaking into their shoes instead of slithering into the gutter.

"See you at the next meeting?" she asked, for something to say.

"If nothing comes up."

"Right."

She felt as if she were being pulled apart inside, torn between shivering fear and sharp, sweet yearning. She thought, staring down at the odd patterns that the rust had left, _I'm going to kiss him._

She turned her face up to his, and met his eyes. _Oh, Merlin. He's going to kiss me._

She rose up on her toes, just a bit. He bent, just a bit. Their lips touched.

She didn't move closer, and nor did he, though less than an inch separated their bodies. The world fell away until the only thing in the world was his mouth on hers.

After a quiet, humming moment, she sank back onto her heels. He straightened up.

Rain drummed on the umbrella.

"You'll put up the protective spells?" he asked quietly, as if the taste of him weren't on her lips.

"Yes." They were mandatory for members of the Order now that they'd revealed themselves to Death Eaters. "You'll be careful on the way home?"

"Yes," he said.

"Good."

They looked at each other a moment, then he walked out into the rain.

When he'd disappeared, she closed her eyes and let her tongue slip out to touch her lips. She tasted orange chicken, spices, fresh rainwater, salt tears.

And him.


	5. Touch of Comfort

(A/N) Please note: this chapter contains sex. Granted, there are FOX TV shows that are more graphic, but I thought I'd warn you anyway. Turn away your eyes if you don't like that stuff.

**  


Part Five: Touch of Comfort

  
**

Through the window, Remus could see the moon. _Waxing half-moon_, he thought. _My old enemy._

When he'd been a boy, old enough to understand what the moon did to him but young enough to hope it wouldn't, he would watch the half-moon with his heart in his throat, praying that _this_ month, it wouldn't ripen to full, but instead dwindle back down to a fingernail.

It never had.

That had been many years ago . . . how many? He couldn't remember.

_Getting old, Remus._

How old was he now? He couldn't think of a number, offhand. Thirty-seven? Thirty-eight? Harry was fifteen--no, sixteen in a few days. God. He couldn't even use that, because he couldn't remember anymore how old he'd been when Harry was born.

_The first sign of losing it, _he told himself. _Watch yourself, old wolf, or you'll buy up a fancy new broomstick and charm your hair. You're already half-mad with wanting a woman who's a generation younger than you._

Remus knew that if he turned his head just a bit, he would see her, curled in a ball under the covers on the single bed. 

He didn't turn his head.

He twisted against the nubby, harsh fabric of the sofa, trying to find a comfortable spot. A spring, annoyed at all the shifting, jabbed the small of his back, and he winced. This inn didn't put its money in its furnishings, that was for certain. But the Order couldn't afford to cover anything fancier. This was good enough for one night.

He'd made sure she had the bed by stretching himself out on the couch under a blanket before she'd got back from the bathroom, rendering any debate academic. At least one of them would sleep.

Had David Blair been asleep?

They'd found him in his bed. They'd found the whole family in their beds. 

Had he slept, and dreamt of his own death as it happened?

Or had a noise woken him, the hush of a shoe against carpet, or the squeak of a floorboard? Had he been blinking into the darkness when that green flash of light had ended his life? Or had it been worse? Had he heard the words in the rooms next door--twice for his parents, three more for his younger sisters, before they'd gotten to him?

Had he felt it? Had it been like an arrow, piercing his chest and stopping his heart? Or had he felt nothing right up until the moment the world had ceased?

They _said_ it killed instantly. But how long was an instant when it was your last?

The family had planned on going to Diagon Alley the next day, their first sight of the world their son would now never step into. There had been two book lists on the electrically-powered icebox, one for David and one for his parents. A book entitled _Wizard Children and Muggle Parents: You Poor Sap, You're Really In For It Now_ had been carefully highlighted.

Nathan Blair and his wife Dianna would never read it now.

_Too late._

Hours. Minutes, maybe.

_Too late._

Their orders had been to take the Blairs into protective custody. Somehow, Death Eaters had got names and addresses of Muggle-born first years. David Blair and his family were far from the first casualties.

Tonks had been white and silent on the walk back from the Blairs' house. They'd found a red metal telephone box on the way. Remus had made the call to the Muggle police, the plastic reciever cold and slick against his ear as he reported a prowler around the neat corner house with its nodding forsythia bushes.

It wouldn't do any real good, of course, except that the bodies would be discovered before they started to rot. 

The Muggles would undoubtedly declare a carbon-monoxide leak. There had been a real rash of those over the past month or so, all over the country. Unfortunate.

Tonks had leaned against the outside of the telephone box with a two-way mirror, calling Number 12. She'd given her report in clear, concise terms, but even from inside, he could see the way silent shivers racked her frame.

_Too late. Too late._

He thought, _I could have talked to Sirius about this._

Pain welled up, but not with the vicous broken-glass edge it had once had. Ever since that evening in Tonks's flat with Chinese takeaway and samosas, the edge had dulled. It would never leave him, of course. That would be impossible, and insulting to Sirius's memory. But he thought he might be able to live with it now.

That night had left him with more than comfort, though. She'd reached out and taken his hands, pleaded with him to let go, to let her see and share his grief. And then he'd realized that he could.

Of all the people in the world, she was the only one he trusted to share such emotion with.

There was something terrifying about that kind of intimacy. As if you shouldn't, somehow, be able to know that much of another person. A lifetime of protecting himself had left Remus ill-equipped for such closeness. He wanted it and feared it at the same time.

If he'd thought was in a state before . . . 

She was under his skin now, ever-present. He dreamt of her--the smell of her hair (whatever color it happened to be), the sight of her smile, the sound of her voice, and the taste of her mouth under his. 

His fingers itched with the need to touch her.

_That way leads madness. Put it out of your head and close your eyes._

"Can't you sleep?"

He turned his head to look at her, the cushion's material scratching his cheek slightly, and the vindictive sofa-spring struck again. He winced. "No."

"Me neither."

Silence.

The mattress creaked slightly.

"You know," she said, "sometimes I really hate this job."

He almost smiled at that. "Only sometimes?"

"Well," she said, "occasionally we get it right."

"Not tonight," he said.

Silence.

"No."

The mattress creaked again, more loudly, and then came the hush of cloth sliding against cloth. And then the soft slap-slap of bare feet on floorboards.

She came out of the moonshadows, a curving figure in thin summer pyjamas, and sank to the floor at his side. He didn't dare move. The warmth from her arm, lying alongside his torso, seemed to reach all through his body. 

"Remus," she said. "Why is it always children?"

His heart twisted in his chest. "Because they can't fight back." He thought of David Blair's first Hogwarts letter, stored under his pillow as only the most precious of treasures were. "And that's the way they like it."

Her hand came up, stroking his hair away from his eyes in a touch as light as a breeze. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of her hand thaw the chill in his heart. He opened his eyes again and looked at her face.

He wondered who was comforting whom here.

"We'll get them," she said. "For David and Molly and Nita and Chirag. For the Blairs and the Higginses and the Sotos and the Patels. We'll get them."

He reached up and caught her hand, sliding his fingers through hers. She had wand calluses along her thumb and first two fingers, but other than that, her palm was soft and warm in his. The way he remembered from that night at her flat.

Her smell wrapped around him, sliding into his blood where it had been for over a year. Moonlight silvered her hair--an exceedingly tame blond for the purposes of undercover--and turned the sweet curve of her shoulder to a statue in marble. The sound of her breath whispering past her lips rose to a roar in his ears.

Need swamped him--not just need for a human touch, to remind him that he was still human himself, but for hers, to remind him that he was still Remus.

_Touch me. Touch me until I forget everything but you._

He shifted barely an inch and found her mouth.

Half a second into it, the kiss deepened beyond the sweetness of the one that had haunted him since June, down into dark-chocolate hunger. His hand slid into her hair, soft as duckling down, and pulled her closer. She came eagerly, her free hand closing around his shoulder to steady herself. "Remus," she whispered against his mouth. "Please make it go away. Make it all go away. For just a little while."

He pulled away, gasping. "Tonks," he said unsteadily. "Not that I won't take anything you offer, but--are you sure you want this with me?"

She put her hands on either side of his head and looked down into his eyes. "Only with you."

She leaned down and kissed him, and the iron control he'd worked so hard to maintain broke into pieces. The world outside of her warm hands, her soft skin, her tender mouth, dissolved. His thoughts melted away like snow under sun. All he could feel was her.

  


* * *

  


Later--much later--Tonks stirred.

"Well," she said, and trailed off.

Not that she'd never touched a man before, but never quite like this. It was true really, what they said about older men. Not that Remus was _ancient_, she hastily corrected herself, but he certainly wasn't seventeen, and he'd proved it.

"Are you all right?" he said.

She stretched, already missing his weight on her. "Why wouldn't I be?" 

"We are on the floor here." His voice was very dry. "A rather hard floor, I might add."

"Are we?" She realized that the surface against her back was hard, flat, and slick, rather than scratchy with hidden springs--wooden floorboards rather than sofa cushions. "Huh. When did we fall off?"

"I think about the time you--"

Heat washed up her cheeks. "Oh. Right. Um--I didn't notice."

He grunted slightly as he sat up. "I did. Old bones."

A cool draft snaked over her, catching the drying sweat on her skin, and gooseflesh erupted. He was doing it again--pushing her away. Reminding her how different they were. She sat up, wrapping her arms around herself. "Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?"

She floundered, then seized on the one thing she could put her finger on. "Call yourself _old_ all the time!"

"I've a fair few years on you, sweetheart."

"Not that many. You talk as if you're bloody Methuselah and I'm some fresh-faced seventh year! How many years is it, really? Ten?"

"Twelve," he corrected. "And that's a conservative estimate."

She scowled. "I'll have you know I'm twenty-five."

He looked at her.

"In October," she admitted, "but the point is, do I look as if I care?"

His eyes made her catch her breath. "You look," he said, "magnificent."

She flopped backward onto the floor, not even wincing when her head bounced. She had a hard head. "That's unfair."

He leaned over, but didn't touch her. "It was meant to be a compliment."

"I know. That's why it's unfair. I'm mad at you."

"For saying I'm old?"

"For thinking it matters. It doesn't," she added just to clarify, rolling up on one hip to glare at him. "Why are you natteirng about it so?"

He looked startled. "Look at you," he said, as if it were perfectly obvious. "You're--"

"If you say young," she threatened, "you shall get _such_ a thumping."

He smiled briefly. "Beautiful."

She stared at him a moment. Then she propped herself up on her elbows like a magazine centerfold and reversed every alteration she'd made to her appearance. Dull hair, plain features, too-small breasts, too-round hips, a variety of odd scars, the latest set of bruises, the weird, ugly birthmark on her stomach--she let them all show. 

Remus watched the transformation in silence. 

When she was done, she said, "Look at this. Look. I'm about as beautiful as you are old, Remus." 

He said nothing for a moment, and she bit her lip, holding his eyes with an effort. This was a million times worse than when he'd seen her real face at St. Mungo's. Right now, she was more naked than she'd ever been with another human being since the age of ten.

He reached out and cupped her face with one hand. Warmth seeped through her body from his palm. "No matter what face you show to the world, Nymphadora Tonks, you will always be beautiful to me."

She closed her eyes and turned her face into the faint roughness of his palm.

"It's all on the inside," he said. "Everything that's you--all that fire and light. No transformation can possibly change that. I need that. I've been in the dark and the cold too long."

She opened her eyes to look at him. "And no matter how old you think you are, you'll always be young enough for me. When you're a hundred and I'm a sprightly eighty-eight-year-old, I'll still need you to anchor me when I fly and catch me when I fall."

He went still. She held her breath. 

Then he came over her, the hair on his chest and legs brushing her skin as lightly as a whisper. Their mouths met, and she put her arms around him, spreading her hands possessively over the smooth skin of his back.

"Remus," she said against his mouth.

"Yes?"

"Let's try the bed, shall we? This floor really is bloody hard."

He jerked away. "Oh, my god."

She sat up too, alarmed. "What? What is it?"

He caught her by the shoulders, his grip so hard she knew she'd have to hide the bruises in the morning so he wouldn't realize he'd hurt her. "Are you protected?"

She blinked at him. "Protected? I'm an Auror."

"No, I mean--I mean from me. I'm healthy," he said quickly. "And I can't give you my condition unless I bite you. But, Tonks, listen, I _can't_ have children."

"Then there's nothing to be--"

He let go of her and rubbed his hands over his face. "I'm sorry. I didn't say that right. I mean--I mustn't. It cannot happen."

"Oh. Remus." She put her arms around him, kissing his cheek and neck to comfort. "No. No. I'm fine. We're fine. That's what I meant. I'm an Auror, of course I'm protected against everything possible. I've a Barren Charm. No chance of--erm--puppies in nine months, believe me."

He pulled away slightly. "You can never say no chance, not with contraceptive magic."

She backtracked. "Ninety-nine point five, then. It's a damn good charm, I promise you. Auror standard." She tried out a smile. "Can't have a bun in the oven while you're on the job, after all. And if you're still worried, I know a good Prophylactic Charm for you."

He relaxed finally. "I'm sorry I panicked. I forgot. It's been so long, and I wouldn't do that to you for anything."

She took his face in her hands, pulling him down for a kiss. "I know."

He rested his forehead on hers. His hair, longer than hers, fell down and brushed her cheeks like silk. "You're taking on a lot with me, sweetheart."

She put her arms around his neck, pulling him close so she could feel every inch of warm, strong, male body, so different from her own. Bony where she was soft, angular where she curved . . . yet already so wonderfully familiar. Her Remus. Finally hers. "That's all right. I get you in the bargain."

FINIS


End file.
